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Linux Headed For Smartphone Domination?
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published a summary of research findings from Zelos Group that predicts that Linux is going dominate the smartphone market, beating out both Symbian and Microsoft. Zelos says that Linux scored highest on the two criteria that matter most to OEMs and carriers: openness and low cost. Microsoft scored lowest in these criteria. The article says Zelos believes Symbian beats Microsoft due to the flexibility of its licensing terms, and Microsoft prospects will be stymied to an extent by its desire to strictly manage how its brand is used. The conclusion: Linux will be the preferred operating system for connected devices."
We all point out how such studies are biased when Microsoft release them...
Surely there's a chance that LinuxDevices has a bit of an interest in this?
the best system does NOT alway win in the market.
the domination of a market depends on marketing, lobbying, cash and quality of the product.
so, linux has 1 out of 4. not bad, but still a long way to go
I think the flexibility that Linux provides to the manufacturers is the key factor in its being the OS of choice. Any OS that the hardware makers can use to their advantage to make the product more robust n fast will definitely be ahead in the race.Seriously doubt an Microsoft OS will give that kind of flexibility or 'openness'.
Lord of the Binges.
i think this whole linux thing is getting out of hand..
all of these devices using code that is available to everyone sounds like trouble.
Now, right now, the market is pretty much dominated by Symbian - at least it is here in the UK, the three main phones running it being the Nokia 7650, and Sony Ericsson P800 and P900. O2 and Orange both have PocketPC and Windows Smartphones.
.NET stuff on phones, it'll be MS, for mainstream, maybe Linux (but what flavor?), and for your PDA-stylee smartphone lover, probably Symbian or something similar. Either way, one mans smartphone capabilities is another mans excessive baggage...
How Linux fits into this is kinda interesting. For a start, there aren't (m)any smartphones on the market that use it yet (there are actually more Windows Smartphone models out there). Secondly, in the smartphone market, it will be the second generation of smartphones - the ones that appeal to people who buy for ringtones and interchangeable covers - that will drive the market, and I don't really see smartphones being that mainstream.
To put it simply, the smartphone market - and it's user's needs and requirements - are incredibly fragmented. It's an area like cars and stereos; market saturation is so great that I don't think any specific OS will 'win out'.
There will be many winners. For corporations needing
linux might fit into the criteria, but few of the bigger _mobile-phone_ companies have been putting their plans toward symbian(nokia, sony-ericcson, even siemens has their sx1 too now).
what I care more is that the system allows ME to install WHAT I WANT, linux isn't a magic bullet to that(actually if there isn't some co-operation the linux phones could end up pretty limited by design and with a shallow base of programs). the currently out symbian phones allow the programs a good access to the system(and the sdk's are available for free as in beer). sure it's nice to have the source code to the kernel but if you can't get your own apps into it(or able to replace any code running on the thing) it doesn't warm you much.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
For [some probably high percentage] of consumers out there, they don't think about, and usually don't care about, what "OS" is running on their phone.
As phones become more like PDAs, this will change. But, the last time I bought a phone, it was mostly an issue of cost and form-factor. I took what I could get, software-wise.
Using Linux means that the phone manufacturer will need an army of developers and tons of resources to develop the specialized software that will run on top of the kernel. There's no way that would be attractive for most companies.
On the other hand Windows Mobile (and to a lesser extent Symbian) provides a very comprehensive suite of applications and the foundation to develop whatever customization is needed. In that way the OEM can focus on doing what they know best: hardware and firmware. That's a huge value item considering the low cost of licensing.
Anyway, time will tell.
Sure Linux may be really cheap or free to incorporate into their handsets, and it's openness allows the manufacturer to do whatever modifications they want, but the problem now is you have incompatible handsets despite them all running Linux. People cannot simply install an app on a Linux handset and expect it to work because there aren't strict guidelines. This is where the closed solutions have an upper hand.
Yes, Linux is open, and it is free, but there aren't any distributions designed for cellphones that are open and free. When you license Sybian or Windows for Smartphone, you get EVERYTHING. You get a reference design for the hardware, a GUI, interfaces for common chipsets, LCD drivers specific for cellphones, etc, etc. Yes, I am aware that Motorola has released a Linux smartphone, but all of the important stuff is still closed source. When you use Linux you get an OS. That's it. A Company has to decide if building the rest from scratch is less than just licensing an OS that already finished the hard stuff. I am betting it often won't be.
I find it very odd that "openness" and "cost"" were valued over business viability. I'm not questioning the decision (yet), but it looks odd to me that all points in the article lead to Linux. In my mind I always believed OEMs were after business viability first (they can always overcharge later).
Whee signature.
I think Linux is a long way off dominating the desktop, mainly because Linux systems are relatively difficult to work with (eg. installing a hardware driver for a camera etc is beyond the capability of Joe Sixpack). This is not a problem in more restrictive systems (eg. servers and embedded systems) where Joe Sixpack does not have to fiddle.
Embedding Linux is way easier and more productive than, say, Windows CE. I do development for both and after doing some Linux stuff, WinCE work is just so depressing.
Compare: change 1 line of kernel code and get running.
Linux: 9 seconds compile etc to build a new kernel image. 6 seconds ethernet download and boot. 15 seconds total.
WinCE: Build 10+ **minutes** to do a full build because the partial build does not work reliably. 3 **minutes** to ethernet download/boot.
Class: who's going to get more work done in a day?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Those guys at Zelos don't know the market then.
- Openness is desirable, but guess what, Symbian is essentially "open" to the phone developers. Linux has no advantage there.
- Low cost. Yes, developers want low cost, but here's where the Zelos guys miss the boat. Low cost means the TOTAL, OVERALL cost, including missing market opportunities from slower time-to-market.
Ask LG and others why they licensed bits of their software from Nokia.
What costs you is the time to develop the product, NOT per device licensing costs. This is NOT a personal computer market where the OS license cost can make up a large percentage of the cost.
Symbian works, it's good enough, it's from a consortium of the mobile phone makers, so it's relatively open and has easy licensing costs. Add to that the base of existing developers, it's hard to see how Linux will crack the market unless some extra whizz-bang functionality is added on the phones that Symbian can't support.
Plus, almost no user cares what OS their phone runs.
I had a chat with one of the prod. development managers from Nokia. He doesn't like the Windows-based products for mobile phones, but it _isn't_ for the reasons the Linux zealots expect. It isn't cost, and he didn't even mention "closed-source".
Today: Recommendations(read "a must have") made by Japanese NTT DoCoMo, made embedded Linux the OS of chiose for all 3g Foma phones manufacturers for 2004. Some other handsets run Linux as well. And one day everything will migrate to 3G... Tomorrow: As for PDAs and phones, IMO there should be no such thing in the future. First it was cellular comunication integrated in PDAs and some basic applications on handsets. Then 802.11 and VoIP, and then "nomadic" networks.(802.16 and such) You'll have one device for all your communications and productivity needs. And I strongly believe that the market share of future devices like this, running under Linux will be very high.
what exactly is counted as a 'smartphone' in those articles?
is for example series60 phones 'smartphones'? as the 3million seems quite low if they are counted as smartphones, if they aren't counted in the number would be better to suite "full pda's with phone" variety(which pretty much won't get much more popular than what pda's are).
besides than that there are models coming that quite obviously are MORE than a regular phone yet quite far from being a full pda like palm or a zaurus(and people much rather seem to buy a phone that looks like a phone, acts like a phone, but that has capabilities for running custom software, checking email & etc). actually nearly all phones coming to the market from nokia the ability to run custom software to some extent(j2me) and email checking, at what point would the phone turn into a 'smartphone' instead of a regular phone? when it has 9mb of memory?
Though they'r referring to hp as the biggest name in the industry so I'm taking the bet that what they mean at itfacts with smartphones are devices that are obviously different segment from normal phones like the nokia communicators(popular amount management people) or the 'full' pda's with phone capabilities that resemble more of a pda than a phone.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
linux is headed for ____ domination. no seriously. i don't see the linux kernel, and its toolsets, and its entourage of libs, and its knowledge-pool, stopping any time soon. look how far it has come in 10 years. where will it be in 5?
... the answer to that question isn't so fun to fantasize about, alas ...
if there is one lesson to learn, it is that the power of people is unstoppable. it is a humble kind of peace indeed, two random computer geeks at different corners of the globe working on 'scratching an itch' together, but it is peace.
so, linux on ____ device is pretty much irrelevant as a question, the question is "where won't linux be getting its huge?", but then
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Yes, but one other factor will be how cheap is it; if two phones do the same thing equally well, I think most will go for the cheaper one. And the phones should be cheaper if the cost to manufacture/program them is cheaper.
Oh no, not again.
Motorola better start early and hire 500 Chinese developers to reverse engineer the Outlook sync because that's 9 times out of 10 why Microsoft wins every market they come into: Microsoft's undocument file formats. I can't believe how many times I've heard the "doesn't sync with outlook complaint" on many a non-microsoft pda forum.
2002: Post "In Soviet Russia" joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
2003: Post "I for one welcome.." joke - +5 Funny guaranteed
And now the SCO-699$ licensing jokes... in every thread even remotely related to Linux. Maybe even several times...
-1 Redundant, please guys.